


All I Want (Need) For Christmas

by NikoArtagnan



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, Climbing Class, Disturbing Themes, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mental Anguish, Mental Health Issues, Team Josh Deserved Better 2k15, Until Dawn Secret Santa 2015, violent imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 04:57:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5484368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikoArtagnan/pseuds/NikoArtagnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He knows where he is, as he leans back against the sheer wall that leads to the outside world, and shakes with terror and cold.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>He is in the mines, and he is alone.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>On the subject of Josh Washington, terrible things in the dark, and the people willing to protect us from them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All I Want (Need) For Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WeAllAreSherlocked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeAllAreSherlocked/gifts).



> This is my present to weallaresherlocked on tumblr, for the 2015 Until Dawn Secret Santa. I've never done a Climbing Class fic before, so this was fun, and I really hope you like it.

_His sodden costume hangs like a dead weight against his skin, and he hears the echoing drip, drip, drip of water dripping against stone. His eyes are closed, and he does not want to open them._

_But they open, completely against his will, and he sits upright. Looks around. He is in a very familiar alcove, sitting in a patch of moonlight that comes from high, high above. He looks up, and sees the moon through a hole high above him, sparkling with an almost mocking brilliance._

_He knows where he is, as he leans back against the sheer wall that leads to the outside world, and shakes with terror and cold._

_He is in the mines, and he is alone._

_Josh Washington shudders on a breath that puffs like white clouds in the cold, still air._

_“Sammy?” His voice is cracked, weak. Hopeful._

_But Sammy isn’t here. She left. Back to the lodge. Back to tell everyone what had happened to him. He remembers seeing her climb, climb all the way up to the moon itself, climb out of this place._

(He remembers the way she wept when Hannah never came home, and how she refused to show anyone her tears. He remembers the way she looked at Mike, telling him to “bring Josh back safe, ok?”)

_“Mike?”_

_But Mike is gone too, dragged under the still, cold water by Hann-_

_He shakes his head in a furious, defiant motion, his hands clawing at the sides of his head, no no no no, that hadn’t been Hannah,_ couldn’t _have been Hannah, not his Hannah, not his baby sister, sweet Hannah who smiled in the sun and had a wicked backhand on the tennis court-_

_The butterfly tattoo, still so visible over sickly gray skin, taunts him in his thoughts and an aching sob tears free from his throat. No, no, no, no, not Hannah, never Hannah, he couldn’t have failed her that badly, couldn’t have failed either of his sisters that much._

(He remembers the look in Sammy’s eyes as she tells him of what she found, and the horror of it can only barely pierce the fog wrapped around his mind, but he knows Sammy would never lie to him but he can’t, oh god, Hannah, Beth, I’m sorry-)

_Josh wraps his arms around himself, rocking back and forth as he moans, low and terrible. He can’t stop. Tears spill down his cheeks._

_“Hannah, Beth, I’m so sorry.”_

_He’s sorry for everything else, too. He didn’t want things to go this far, he never did. He didn’t want people to die. He doesn’t want to be alone, god, someone, anyone._

_“Chris?” He asks, his tongue almost frozen in the cold, stagnant air. “Chris?”_

_But Chris is not here._

_Chris left him in the barn, left with his sad, sad eyes and his refusal to look Josh in the eye. But Josh got him together with Ashley, and Chris had done so very, very well, that it didn’t matter, it hadn’t mattered then, it wasn’t supposed to matter._

(He remembers the shock and betrayal and hurt on Chris’s face when he takes off the mask, and something inside him says this is how it should be, this is how it was meant to be, now Chris can see what has always been there)

_He shakes even more. But it matters now, it matters so much. His gloved hands dig into his arms, and he can’t stop crying. He wants Chris. He’s always wanted Chris._

_But he knew even then, when he first looked at his best friend’s smiling, sheepish face and something inside him went oh, that he is not good for him. He’s not good for anyone, but especially not Chris._

_“Chris,” Josh sobs. But he still wants him. He wants Chris so much it feels like something is clawing in his throat. “I’m sorry, please don’t leave me.”_

_“Oh_ Chrissss _~”_

_A mocking voice comes from the darkness all around him, and Josh freezes in terror. Something skitters on the edges of his vision, and he scrambles back, his fingers digging into the rock behind him._

_There is someone here._

_A fresh new wave of terror snakes down his spine, and he shakes like a small child, unable to run, so exhausted that he can’t even put up half of the fight he managed to give when the things in the dark had come for him before._

_“You’re so pathetic. Moaning and weeping like the pathetic piece of shit you are. Expecting everyone to come and save you when you don’t deserve it.”_

_The voice is familiar. Not Hannah-familiar, or Beth-familiar, but still familiar, for all the words were slightly slurred, as though whoever was speaking spoke through a mouth full of teeth._

_Eyes glitter in the shadows, and his breath shudders on a sob that cuts like knives in his throat. There is a figure in the shadows, not hunched and crawling like Hann-no,_ not _like Hannah, that thing hadn’t been his baby sister, it couldn’t have been-_

 _“Look at you. Cowering there, hoping someone comes to rescue you, and whining. No wonder Sammy left you. No wonder_ Chris _left you.”_

_Josh moans, low and anguished, and puts his hands over his ears._

_“He wouldn’t, he, he_ wouldn’t _,” Josh stumbles over the words, stumbles over the lie in them, because of course Chris would leave him. Everyone leaves him eventually._

(He remembers the way Chris smiled at him, all shy and happy and excited, when he confesses that he has a crush on Ashley, and he remembers the way his own heart started to crack, even as he slung his arm around Chris’s shoulders and began teasing him mercilessly.)

_The figure steps almost out of the shadows, and Josh stares in blank shock._

_It’s_ him _. An exact version of him, from the hair on his head, to the sodden, torn coveralls. His other self looks at him like a predator looks at their prey, head cocked to the side in a watchful, too still pose._

_“You don’t have any right to call for him,” the voice that was a slurred version of his own says. “Or did you forget what you did? Did you forget how much of a piece of shit you were, you stupid psycho?”_

_Josh wheezes, trying not to simply scream out with sobs. “N-No, I’m not, y-you’re not…you’re not real!”_

_Dozens of things in the shadows laugh and giggle, their chortles scraping like nails on a chalkboard. His other self snorts._

_“You’re pathetic. A pathetic, sniveling piece of shit. You’ll be down here forever, until the hunger gets too much. Until you feel your belly_ crawling _with hunger…in fact…Aren’t you_ hungry _, Josh?”_

_As if on cue, his stomach growls._

_The other him laughs and laughs and laughs as Josh looks down at his stomach like it’s betrayed him._

_“Can’t help yourself, can you? You always were worthless. At least Hannah held out for thirty days before she gave in. But you? You were never half as strong as her.”_

_At the mention of Hannah, Josh finds the strength to stagger upright._

_“Don’t say that!” He shouts, his voice cracked and clogged. “You don’t, You don’t know her! Don’t talk about my sister!”_

_“But she’s my sister too,” the Not!Josh says. “Isn’t that right, Hannah?”_

_There is an awful screech, and something crouches in the shadows. A distended face appears, spindly arms, mottled grey skin. A mouth full of jagged teeth._

_“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” Josh sobs. “No please, no this isn’t real, this isn’t real, Hannah no-”_

_There is a thump, as one of those long, clawed hands roll something to him. A round object, wrapped in a jacket he knows all too well. Pink, puffy, faded and torn. But he knows it._

_A scream in his throat as his fingers claw at the rock behind him, tearing through the gloves to the nails and leaving bloody marks on the stone._

_The jacket unrolls, and a decomposed, rotting head rolls to a stop at his feet. Beth’s head looks up at him, a slack expression in her dead, staring eyes._

_He looks up, tears himself away from his baby sister’s accusing gaze, as his other self steps into the light._

_The other Josh smiles, revealing a mouth full of bloody, jagged teeth, half of his face mottled and twisted, like a wendigo, and holds up Beth's head. The head's dead eyes focus on him._

_“Time to eat, Joshy-washy,” the head says, slurring over a rotten and decomposing tongue._

_Clawed hands grab him. A pig is squealing and blood, there is so much blood. Blood is pouring down his face, into his nose and eyes, and there is flesh in between his teeth. He gags and vomits and the Hannah that can’t be Hannah’s face is right there._

_“Joshy-washy, we’ll be together forever,” she says, and lunges forward with a screech._

_He screams._

* * *

Hands are on him, but just two hands. Soft, warm hands, not clawed monstrosities. A voice is calling his name, panic and worry and shock in every word.

“-osh! Josh, babe come on, wake up, _please_!”

Josh’s eyes open and he jackknifes up, flailing and still screaming, Hannah’s screams in his ears and Beth’s dead eyes in his mind. But there are arms around him, and a body pressed against his, and he is warm and…

The panic fades, just a little. Because there is no flesh between his teeth and no blood in his mouth.

There are arms around him, and a slightly panicked voice whispering assurances into his hair. No blood. No decapitated head of his baby sister.

The blurring fog that seemed to have settled over his eyes is going away. Instead of cold stone walls, he sees wood paneling. A painting of a seascape hangs on the wall before him. The room is bathed in the warm glow of a lamp turned on low.

He can’t stop shuddering.

“Josh, babe, are you all right?”

Josh jerks back, and looks into the face of the man holding him. Pale, blond hair, blue eyes. Glasses knocked askew.

“Hey,” and Chris’s hands are gentle as they brush through his hair. “Hey, are you all right?”

Josh’s lips thin into a trembling line, and he throws himself at Chris’s chest, fighting to keep the tears at bay.

“I’ll take that as a no, then,” Chris says, and quickly shucks off his boots, before climbing into bed with him. His clothes are cold as Josh presses his face into the crook of his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry Josh, I thought you’d be asleep for a while longer,” Chris says, pressing his face to the top of Josh’s head.

The cold is fading from his bones, and terror from his limbs. But he doesn’t want to let go.

…He doesn’t have to let go. He remembers now.

It’s been three years since his sisters… _died_. Two years since the mountain. One year, eleven months, and ten days since Chris had come into the mines in search of him.

Four months since the two of them moved in together. Josh’s hands curl into the flannel of Chris’s shirt.

It is December 23, and he is safe. Chris is here, Chris did not leave him. Chris _would not_ leave him.

He'd come for Josh in the mines.

( _He remembers Chris’s face swimming up out of the hallucinations, his eyes streaming with tears. He remembers the tears in Chris’s eyes –_ Josh, I found you, thank God _– and he remembers the way Chris’s arms wrapped around him, anchoring him to something that was_ real _and wouldn’t hurt him._ )

“Where were you?” Josh asks after a long moment, still refusing to let his grip ease.

“Setting up the tree,” Chris says in wry amusement, and the idea is so ludicrous Josh pulls back and looks up at him.

“You were doing _what_ now?” Josh asks.

“Setting up the tree. I know you didn’t want to last year, but I thought you might want to help decorate it,” Chris says sheepishly.

“But you haven’t broken out in hives, so I don’t know how that’s possible,” Josh points out, trying not to smile at the blush stealing over his boyfriend’s cheeks. Chris was about as allergic to pine as it was possible to get.

“Well, it’s not a real one,” Chris says. “Me and Sammy picked it out a couple weeks ago. She said…She said you would like it. We can decorate it tomorrow, if you’d like.”

Josh nods, and snuggles back against his shoulder.

That would be…nice. It would be.

When he finally slipped back into sleep, Josh Washington did not dream at all.

* * *

“Hey, Josh, Sammy had this sent over. She thought we’d like it for our tree,” Chris says, and gently hands over a box wrapped in a dark red paper, while fending off the loving affections of the Labrador who is bound and determined to sit on his lap.

Josh grins as he unwraps it. “What, was Sammy trying her hand at arts and crafts again?” He jokes, and pulls off the lid. “We both saw how that went last…time…”

A small ornament lies nestled on white tissue paper. It is made from clear, glittery glass, with a bright red ribbon, and held within it is a picture.

A picture of him, and his sisters. The three of them together, Josh’s arms wrapped around the two girls’ shoulders, while they hugged him tight.

“Do you like it?” Chris asks softly, and Josh looks up to see Chris watching him carefully.

Josh nods, his eyes stinging. “Did…did Sammy make this?”

“Yeah… _Well_ , she got the picture and put it in the ornament, if that counts.”

Josh laughs wetly. “I like it.”

“You wanna put it on the tree?”

Josh looks at the rather bedraggled tree standing by the roaring fire that blazes in the fireplace, a tree that’s already festooned with tinsel and ornaments. He nods and stands up, and walks over to an empty space near the front, one he’d been thinking about hanging one of the remaining ornaments scattered around.

He loops the red ribbon around a branch and steps back to look at it.

In the midst of multi-colored lights, garish ornaments, and sparkly tinsel, his sisters smile up at him.

Chris’s arms wrap around his waist, and he leans back into his grasp.

“Merry Christmas, Josh.”


End file.
